Rural Landscape Conservation Research Articles

選択実験型コンジョイント分析による環境リスク情報のもたらす順序効果の検証

The development of a variety of stated preference methods has been an important agenda in the field of environmental valuation during the last decade. It leads to the wide use of those methods for costbenefit analyses. In this article, choice modeling is examined as to whether or not it is reliable for the evaluation of agri-environmental policy measures such as the direct payment and rice terrace partnership program. A choice modeling approach has an advantage in evaluating the multi-attribute environmental goods compared with contingent valuation method. Rice terrace has two different kinds of environmental impacts, i. e., environmental benefits (multifunctionality) and damage. Both environmentally positive and negative impacts should be evaluated simultaneously. Otherwise, the result is considered to be biased. The choice modeling can accommodate a number of attributes. Therefore, it is quite a useful tool to assess the environmental value of multi-attribute goods. Environmental benefits are classified into two categories.One is the conservation of rural landscapes and ecosystems, and the other is disaster prevention. As for environmental damage, water contamination caused by the excessive application of pesticide and fertilizer is presented.A mail survey was conducted in July, 2001. Two types of questionnaires were mailed to 400 general households in Kamogawa-city. Samples were randomly chosen from the telephone directory. The difference of those questionnaires appears in an order of attributes and their explanation. Exchanging the attributes between an environmental benefit and damage enables an analysis of an order effect. Their overall response rates were 74.5% and 82.0%, respectively.This experimental choice technique produced marginal willingness-to-pays for three types of environmental impacts with statistical significance of key variables. Marginal willingness-to-pays for water contamination were at least twice as high as those of two environmental benefits.An order effect of the questionnaire design was tested using likelihood ratio test and t test. Consequently, an order effect was statistically revealed. This finding suggests the choice modeling is not an ideal tool for environmental valuation. It is also affected by some biases due to respondents inconsistent attitude toward environmental risk.

Conserving English Landscapes: Land Managers and Agri-Environmental Policy

There is increasing public policy interest in the management of rural landscapes for conservation, both in terms of natural and cultural heritage. Agri-environmental policies are an important part of an emerging vision for a sustainable countryside, with increasing support for the existing Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) and Countryside Stewardship (CS) schemes. This paper provides insight into the nature of land-manager attitudes towards the conservation of rural landscapes and how these relate to differing modes and levels of engagement with these two schemes. It is based on the results of a recently completed project exploring the attitudes and practices of 100 land managers towards features of landscape and historic interest. Agri-environmental research has often sought to ‘typologise’ attitudes and practices around discrete land-manager types; an approach that may downgrade commonalities between land managers, the potential interplay of elements defining these types, and the possibility that land-manager identities may not be uniform. In this paper, in contrast, we emphasise the significance of these three analytical issues surrounding land-manager attitudes and practices. We explore land managers' interest and investment in conservation and go on to explain how these concerns were often closely related to the wildlife, historic and aesthetic goals of the schemes. The analysis then considers in detail how a concern for conservation often came to interplay with economic concerns to produce different attitudes and practices. We term these ‘styles of participation and nonparticipation’ to emphasise that such modes of uptake are not necessarily associated with specific land-manager types. Land managers developed these attitudes and practices with respect to different parts of their farms, types of landscape feature, and scheme in question. We conclude by emphasising the importance of contextualised analyses of land-manager values, knowledges, and practices for exploring the nature and possibilities of a ‘sustainable countryside', and the role of agri-environmental policy within this policy vision of rural areas.

Conservation of Rural Landscape Now and in the Future

Conservation of Rural Landscape Now and in the Future

農村空間における生物相および景観の保全に関する最近10年間の研究動向

農村空間における生物相および景観の保全に関する最近10年間の研究動向

Conservation of rural landscape from cultural point of view

Conservation of rural landscape from cultural point of view